“Every second, around four football fields of healthy land are degraded,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Women in Senegal work in tree nurseries created as part of the Great Green Wall initiative to improve living conditions, biodiversity conservation and the sustainability of the land in the Sahel region.
- Every second, an equivalent of four football fields of healthy land becomes degraded, adding up to a total of 100 million hectares each year
- Each dollar invested in land restoration can yield up to $30 in return
- In many countries affected by desertification, land degradation and drought, agriculture represents a high share of economic revenue
- Under UNCCD, over 130 countries have already pledged to achieve land degradation neutrality by 2030 towards a world where human activity has a neutral, or even positive, impact on the land
- The UN supports innovative efforts worldwide, including the newly launched Great Green Wall Observatory, which tracks progress of Africa’s largest land restoration initiative to combat land degradation, desertification and the negative impacts of climate change in the Sahel region
- The UN Educational. Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) established a growing national and global networks of “Geoparks” combining conservation and sustainable development, with 213 UNESCO Global Geoparks operating in 48 countries and counting
- Learn more about how the UN is helping here